Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Do excuse my lateness this week. I had stag dos to attend at the weekend and I've barely recovered. I'm back now though, and I'm delighted to bring you part two of the Tuscan adventure. Enjoy.

Siena and Chianti

On our second full
day we had planned to brave the roads once more and head to Siena. We’d thought
of getting the train, but Simone our host, had said the road route was
beautiful and there would be farmers by the side of the road selling wine; we
could just stop, try it, and buy it if we liked it.

So off we went, the
satnav was programmed and we headed down into the valley. If you’ve got a
satnav, you’ll know they’re very good. You don’t need a map and if you take a
wrong turn it just recalculates and figures out a new route for you.
Occasionally though, that’s not what you want.

Fairly early on we
missed a left turn and watched as the satnav recalculated and displayed another
left turn up ahead. We figured that would be fine, but started to wonder 20
minutes later why we were driving through industrial estates and alongside
motorways, before joining a motorway for a sizeable portion of the journey. It
was clear by this point that we had missed the beautiful scenery and were
probably driving around a mountain instead of over it. And we didn’t see a
single farmer selling wine the whole way. We determined to be more careful
about the route on the way back.

Yeah, Siena’s very
beautiful and everything, but when you’ve seen one medieval Italian city,
you’ve got a pretty good idea of what the next one’s going to be like. We
walked around and even went into the Duomo and some of its subsidiaries, but
our hearts weren’t really in it. It was just nice to be there. Chapels, domes,
cathedrals, sculptures, frescoes… how interesting are they really? I mean, really?

Oh, excuse me, were
you trying to get… aw.

On queuing to buy a
ticket for the various attractions I noticed a middle-aged lady trying to sneak
ahead of me, on my left. She was pushing right up to the lady in front who,
while annoyed, wasn’t doing anything to help me stave off this intruder.
Obviously I couldn’t really muscle her out of the way, but I did see that maybe
Mrs Cake could swoop in from the right and get to the kiosk first. It all
depended on which way the couple in front chose to exit after making their
purchases.

The tension was
building and Mrs Cake got ready… as we had hoped, the couple went to the left,
thus causing a slight delay to the middle aged lady’s advance and enabling Mrs
Cake to step up. I nearly laughed out loud as we made our way past. You see, I
could tell the lady knew that I couldn’t take any action myself, and was using
that to her advantage. Ah, but she hadn’t figured that I have crafty techniques
of my own and a willing and able accomplice.

We stayed in Siena
until early afternoon and decided to head through the Chianti region, saving
San Gimignano for another day. The route was a lot more appealing this time,
but as the driver I wasn’t seeing anything I haven’t seen in the Peak District.
The weather was a lot nicer, mind.

As we drove,
listening to Radio Subasio on which we heard the Italian Pink, the Italian
System of a Down and the British Robbie Williams, we kept an eye out for agriturismos. Mrs Cake had been told
that these are B&Bs that also provide food. You just look out for a sign,
follow it and (in theory), provided it’s lunch or dinner time, you can get a
nice, rustic, home-cooked meal. They are supposed to be everywhere, but as we
were driving through Gaiole in Chianti, Radda in Chianti and all the various
other in Chiantis, we weren’t seeing
any. It didn’t help any that we’d been told it needed to be a meal time and
that had we found any, we would have felt uncomfortable rocking up and asking
if we could join them…

“Politico-litico-litico, physico-physico-physico,
solido-solido-solido…” went the Italian rap song as we wound our way up and
down, round and round various mountains, passing vines, and generally being passed on blind mountain bends by
crazy locals. It was fun, but when you start to get hungry and you’re not sure
when you’re going to get to eat, things can get a little strained.

“…dementico tutto, dementico tutti…”,
sang the Italian Pink for all she was worth, and we continued our quest,
stopping along the way to stroll around villages, looking for places to have
dinner, sample wine, peruse stocks of grappa and the like. It soon became
apparent that, while wine is the golden child here (to grappa’s wayward cousin),
it wasn’t going to be difficult finding grappa to buy. There was loads of it,
and it was very reasonably priced. Over the week I saw so many varieties in
special bottles I started to become grappa blind – how was I supposed to pick one (or two) over any others?

In contrast, Mrs
Cake’s quest to buy wine directly from a farmer was going nowhere but finally,
as the satnav guided us up a white gravel road on the side of a mountain – the
kind of road that makes you skid if you get above 10mph and makes the car go PING and POP every couple of seconds as a boulder bounces off it – we saw a
sign that said ‘direct sales’ and a car park.

Fuck it, let’s go in here.

Castello San Donato in Perano

It didn’t exactly
look welcoming from the outside, looking as it did like a small factory in the
middle of nowhere, but we walked in and were greeted by a guy who was delighted
to let us sample a few wines. We made it clear from the outset that we weren’t
there to buy cases or anything, and he didn’t mind that, but we knew we’d feel
compelled to make some purchases.
This is Castello San Donato in Perano.

We were led into a
back room that was decorated with bottles of wine (and grappa) and various
certificates proclaiming that this particular vineyard had won prizes – quite a
lot of prizes.

We were given a
large wine glass each and some information about the wines they produced. Three
samples of red wine followed, along with an aged dessert wine, and then three
of four varieties of grappa. Our guide couldn’t comment on the quality of the
grappa as it wasn’t really his thing. This was a recurring theme throughout the
week – they produce a lot of grappa, but they’re more into their wine.

There were four
varieties; a standard one, one with some merlot in it, an aged one and then one
that I don’t recall anything about and that I didn’t get to try. They were all
15 euros (for 50cl) and I opted for the merlot variety.

Mrs Cake was a fan
of the wine – it was nice enough, to be fair, but red wine is all much of a
muchness for me. She bought a couple of
bottles, one of which was the last of a certain production run, and wasn’t
‘typical of the vineyard’s style’, though ‘the americans like it [slight
sneer]’. We didn’t try that one, but at a bargain price of 4 euros, we figured
we may as well stick it in the bag for drinks later. We drank that one back at
the apartment, and it was perfectly fine.

I thought the
dessert wine was excellent – far more interesting than ordinary wine - so we went for one of those too, as well as one of
their more expensive red wines – though not the most expensive.

With our direct
sales cherry well and truly popped, we headed back out onto the roads of the
Chianti region for some more exploration and later, dinner in Rada in Chianti,
overlooking a typical Tuscan vista, where the soundtrack led us to discussing
the dangers of dancing in the dark – such as falling down some steps, or
tripping over a sleeping dog. Later, back at the apartment, in the dark… Mrs
Cake banged her thigh on the bed frame, as if to illustrate the discussion.

Oh, I also picked up
a couple of grappa steam glasses, so that I can enjoy my grappa properly. The
only problem with them is that they hold only one measure instead of my
preferred two.

Once dark had well
and truly settled, it was time to drive home – a slightly daunting prospect,
but you know, I like a challenge. Martha the Satnav told us it would be a 45
minute journey (that was assuming, of course that we would be able to make it
the whole way at those Italian speed limits), so I wasn’t looking forward to
that. The first night’s drive back from dinner had been only 18 minutes, but it
seemed like an hour and a half. There were sections where I swear the ‘time to
destination’ didn’t move for 15 minutes at a time. Fer serious.

Nevertheless, I was
more relaxed about this one, even though we soon found it required us to drive
down a mountain in the dark. It was all hairpin bends and steep gradients, but
I don’t think we met another vehicle coming the other way – during the maddest
part at least. And now that it was too late we started seeing signs for vineyards
and agriturismos. Where were they when we
were looking for them?

Achievement
unlocked: drive home in the dark.

Back to the Agriturismo Search

Having failed so
miserably on the previous day, we decided that on Tuesday we would not fail in
finding one of these agriturismo gubbinses. Mrs Cake had become determined that
eating at one of these places was an absolute must, and having been informed by
a colleague who had been in the region just a week previously that they were
everywhere and easy to find, had come to regard failure as unacceptable and
something that would reflect very badly upon us indeed.

So before leaving the apartment this time we
did a bit of planning. Simone had left us an A4 sheet with some details, and I
looked them up to see which were nearby. It looked like there were a few we
could aim for.

What followed was a
nice drive but once again we were denied fulfilment. It started out ok; we
programmed the satnav as far as we could and followed it to a sign that pointed
to the particular agriturismo we were looking for. We celebrated that something
had finally gone as planned, as we turned onto the track. We followed the white
gravel path, past a house that didn’t have a sign outside it, to a gate that
did. We followed further, alongside some fields where the grapes were bulging
on the vines. We passed another house that didn’t look like it was what we were
looking for.

Finally we came to a
car park, though the track carried on to the right. I parked up and had a look…
the track was starting to get very thin
at that point.

I tried
communicating in very poor Italian with an old fella who didn’t even have very
poor English – beyond a shrug. Eventually he pointed down the track, so I got
back in and drove round… into a farmyard… still no signs, this ain’t working.

So it was back up to
the first house we’d come to where Mrs Cake tried her luck and found a lovely
lady who didn’t speak any English but was very helpful and confirmed that what
we were looking for was where we’d just been. She was very confused that we
hadn’t found it. It’s amazing what you can communicate in two completely
different languages.

We gave up, and
headed back to the main road. We had passed a few signs for other agriturismos
on our way, so we thought we’d just try those.

One led to a
“private road”, which we followed for a bit… to some massive gates. And turned
back.

A little further on
we came to another and went driving through fields where men were working. None
of them looked up as we came along, and we even met a guy coming the opposite
way in a tractor at one point. It was a steep incline for us, and the track was
only one vehicle wide. He stopped and waved us on, so I took that as a sign
that they welcome visitors.

At the end of the
track was a house, with a couple of cars parked at the back. I pulled in and
Mrs Cake got out to investigate. In a building to the side she found a leaflet
about wine tastings, but there was no one around.

After a couple of
minutes a grey haired man could be seen approaching from a barn to the other
side. Mrs Cake went over to say hello, and found that he was very welcoming and
friendly. This was his vineyard. He told us that the grapes were all ready for
harvesting, so everyone is very busy at the moment – that’s why we weren’t
finding any agriturismos open for meals or vineyards open for tours.

Nevertheless, he
invited us down to his barn where we would be able to buy some wine. Once again
we made it clear early on that we couldn’t buy much as we didn’t have the
capacity to take it back with us. He didn’t mind at all, and we had a nice chat
and bought a couple of bottles, totalling about 20 euros… so not really the
kind of bargain you’d be looking for, but presumably this wine would be a lot
more expensive if you bought it from a retailer. One of the wines, the farmer said,
he had bottled just a couple of days ago and hadn’t even got a label on yet
(or, indeed any sealant over the cork). Since it was so recently bottled he
said we would have to leave it for at least three months before opening. It was
red wine again. He said he produced some white, but eh, it was not so good.

Achievement
unlocked: buy wine directly from a farmer.

We headed back to
the nearest town to find some lunch, but had to recalculate when the road in
was blocked off for some kind of international cycling championship (it turns
out it was the 2013 UCI Road World Championships). Instead we went back to Loro
Ciuffena.

We crossed paths
with the bike race again on the way back to the apartment when an official
looking guy on a moped signalled that we should stop by the side of the road,
and back up a little. I reversed into the mouth of a driveway by a sharp bend
and waited.

Nothing happened for
a while, then a couple of cars with bikes on the top went past. Then a few more
mopeds. Then a guy on a moped stopped in front of us and signalled that we
should continue waiting.

How long are we going to be stuck here for?

At this point an
elderly couple wanted to come out of their driveway, but of course we couldn’t
let them. We could only wait.

“I presume”, I said,
“that when this guy rides off, we can go…”

A group of cyclists
suddenly emerged from nowhere, bookended by support cars, and passed on up the
road. The moped man rode off without providing any kind of signal as to whether
we needed to stay or whether we could go.

“What do you think
would happen if we went?” asked Mrs Cake, not more than a few moments before a
larger group of cyclists appeared and whizzed past.

I laughed. “It would
be absolute carnage,” I said,
imagining famous world class cyclists bouncing off our bonnet and potentially
tumbling down a mountainside. “We’d be on the news.”

After a few more
stragglers a car passed that looked like it might be signalling the end of the
race procession. We couldn’t be sure, so I looked at the old couple in their
car, who must have seen this before. They signalled that I should go, so I gave
them a thumbs up, and away we went.

Rounding the first
bend we almost collided with three more cyclists who can’t have been part of
the race, but were probably trying to take advantage of the race’s
organisation. Luckily for them they had chance to get out of the way before I
ploughed into them. And that was that. I wonder if we were on the telly…

Don’t Worry, Be Grappa

I continued my
search through the city of Florence and the walled town of San Gimignano, with
its famous towers. Gift shops are everywhere of course and, wine being such a
famous export, booze shops are ten a penny. Mrs Cake had her handbag to seek
out, and I had scores of grappa varieties to somehow select one more purchase
from.

It was frankly
getting far too difficult. I had no idea which ones were supposed to be
particularly good, but in the end I did make a choice. There had been a direct
sales shop in one of the Chianti towns that had two varieties. I just decided
it would be more appropriate to buy something through direct sale from the
producer than some random brand from any of the scores of wine shops, so I went
back for the more expensive of the two. It was still only 25 euros, and it was
the more aged variety. When I got it back to the apartment I found that they
only produce 2000 bottles a year, and each one is numbered. Mine is 394. I
suppose I could have found one with a lower number if I’d looked, but it
doesn’t matter because I’m going to drink it anyway (achievement unlocked:
accidental numbered bottle purchase).

The man had asked if
I wanted to try it, but it had taken me so long to decide on my purchase that I
didn’t want to be put off. I also thought that trying it might diminish the
moment of fulfilment, whenever I came
to open it.

Bringing it all Back Home

Too many grappas, not enough CCs (of luggage
space)

When our last day
came around we still had about 6 beers, a bottle of wine, a quarter of a bottle
of grappa, and some complimentary fizz (that turned out to be the Italian
equivalent of Lambrini, and only 6% ABV) to drink. We had decided the last
day would be spent lounging at the apartment, drinking and smoking cigars. I’m
pleased to inform you that we made it – all except for one beer, and most of
the fizz.

I had been concerned
about bringing all our purchases back home, since we only had one bag between
us, but needed to safely get 5 bottles in there – 2 wine, 1 dessert wine and 2
grappa. We planned carefully and Mrs Cake packed. I came in and expressed
concerns about her methods, which annoyed her, then she packed in a way I was
more comfortable with. Everything got home in one piece (achievement unlocked).

Paranoia

My last day was
soured a little by the fact that I started to get worried about speeding
tickets for some reason. You see, as my confidence in driving grew, my speed
crept up a little (more in line with the locals), and though the satnav kept
warning us of speed cameras, I never saw any. On top of that, the speed limit
given by the satnav was often in direct opposition to the signs I was seeing
from time to time. So gradually I just came to ignore the warnings and drive at
a safe speed – which was fine, except that sometimes the speed limit signs
seemed too high, and sometimes ridiculously low.

Anyway, on our
penultimate day I finally saw a speed camera… and then I started seeing them
everywhere, and I started thinking, there’s
no way I haven’t been caught on one of those. And then I thought, if I’ve been caught once, I could have been
caught 2, 3, 4 times… what happens then?

I had visions of
being banned from driving because I’d amassed more points than you’re allowed,
all in one week (I’ve never had any points on my licence before). I didn’t know
how it works in foreign countries. Presumably notification goes to where the
car is registered – the car hire company – where they have a record of your
licence details, then presumably there is some liaison with the DVLA in
Swansea…

I’ve just done some
research actually, and it turns out that there is no standardised system for
points, so you won’t get any on your UK licence, though any fines will be
forwarded to your UK address. It’s been several months now, and nothing has
come through, so once again all that worry was for nothing (achievement
unlocked: no speeding fine).

Brandy

One of my
procurement targets for this holiday was Italian brandy. I’d done a bit of
research before departure so, while grappa was very much the focal point,
brandy was still on the radar. As things transpired, I pretty much forgot about
brandy once we got started – knowing of course that luggage space was limited.
Nor did I see much (any) in the various shops we visited (on the occasions when
I remembered to stop looking at the grappa for a second).

I finally found two
cheap brands in Pisa airport’s duty free (10 euros for a litre), and I couldn’t
make up my mind there and then. I figured I could decide later, when we’d
gotten through to the other departure lounge, but it turned out that I’d missed
my last chance. Let’s be honest; I wasn’t that bothered.

The John Grisham Game

One final, but
non-booze related thing I’d like to mention is the John Grisham Game. This is
built around the fact that many apartments, villas, hotels or whatever have a
stock of books that presumably previous occupants have left behind. They’re
never very intellectual in all fairness – for some reason, people who go on
holiday like to read shit. Anyway, if you find a John Grisham book there, you
can guess the title with your partner. Nearly every John Grisham book is called
The something. And the something is a
word you would associate with legal things.

Mrs Cake was
checking out the books and I instigated the game.

“Is it The Juror?”

“No.”

“The Trial?”

“No.”

“The Witness?”

“No.”

“The Murder?”

“No.”

“The Kidnapping?”

“No, but that was quite close.”

“The Abduction?”

“Yeah!”

…and back home

One day, it was all
over. Another excellent holiday, another fascinating booze tourism adventure,
some more booze for the cabinet. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it. I
highly recommend you go and find out what it’s all about for yourself. I could
actually see myself doing this holiday again sometime, and I don’t say that
very often.

Don’t forget to keep
checking back to the blog every week. I’ll have something else for you next
week no doubt, and eventually there will be more about the various purchases we
made on this trip.

Sunday, 16 February 2014

Another holiday,
another booze tourism adventure. That’s what happens when you don’t have any
kids – making 3 in 2013 (holidays, not kids – maybe we’ll make 3 kids next
year… but preferably one to begin with), with [at the time of writing] one
still on the horizon - Christmas in Canada, with the chance to pick up some
obscure bourbon and Canadian whiskies…I’ve even heard Canadians make pomace
brandy, you know.

Mrs Cake’s equivalent of my Distilgrimage

This time it was
Tuscany, in the heart of Italy, and you know what that means, don’t you? Grappa,
Italian beer and to a lesser extent (for me at least) wine. Yes, they make a
lot of wine in Tuscany (you might have heard of the Chianti region which is
right in the middle of it there), so the general idea behind the holiday was
much relaxation, much tootling around in a rental car (which may not
necessarily go hand in hand with the relaxation thing) and much consumption of
sumptuous foods and rich alcohols.

I would be doing the
driving, so in theory that would make this Mrs Cake’s equivalent of my Distilgrimage. That was so awesome
that I was delighted to be able to return the favour that Mrs Cake did by
driving me round most of the distilleries of Islay while I drank enough samples
for both of us – and not just because my pre-trip research didn’t turn up any grappa distilleries in the region.
I’ll just chauffeur the missus around then so that she can consume as much wine
as possible. But would there be any
grappa to be had? That was my concern (outside of generally having a great
time and relaxing with Mrs Cake). Well… we’ll see.

It’s going to be too late to get to the duck fest…

No duty free
purchases to take with me this time; I knew interesting alcohol would likely be
available in abundance, so I set my sights on an early supermarket purchase of
some grappa that I could dip into throughout the week, and hopefully finish
before returning home – ideally leaving space for two special grappas to come
home with me.

We collected the
hire car from Pisa airport – a tiny and clunky Nissan Micra with far more
scratches on it than were marked on the damage sheet (we’d been warned of the notoriety
of Pisa Airport’s car hire merchants, so we had the guy mark on all the extra
scratches), and a fuel tank that was two notches below full… though I didn’t
notice that until we had to fill up the first time; oh, so those bars do go all
the way to the top… ROBBING BASTARDS!

We plugged in the
satnav, and away we went, straight down the highway towards Florence, before
turning off towards Arezzo and arriving at our apartment, halfway up a mountain
an hour and a half later.

Though our host
couldn’t be with us for another couple of hours, we elected to hang out by the
pool, eating the Aldi crisps we’d brought from home.

A couple of hours
and a brief orientation later, we were on our way back down the winding
mountain road, looking to head to the Coop
supermarket in the nearby town of San Giovani Valdarno. The plan was to
collect a few essentials before heading to the slightly further town of Arezzo
for what was being billed as a Duckfest
- so lots of duck to eat. We were starving by this point and prone to
irrational bursts of panic or stress as our stomachs digested themselves, so
the possibility of a duck fest went right up my flagpole.

San Giovani Valdarno
is only a small town so surely, we thought, it couldn’t be difficult to locate a
medium sized supermarket. WRONG. We
drove up and down, round and round, trying to get used to the traffic system
and the fact that you’re not expected to stop for pedestrians at crossings in
Italy, all the while watching the light fade and thinking, ‘it’s going to be
too late to get to that duck fest… it might be too late to pick up groceries at
this rate…’

We made it in the
end, finding what turned out to be a medium sized supermarket that would have
been a food blogger’s delight… fantastic deli counter, but you don’t want to
hear about that.

No, what about the
booze? Well, Mrs Cake went in search of the cheapest wine she could find while
I went to check out the beers. Most of the beer was gone but I got a couple of
reasonably priced three packs – Moretti and Poretti…

When I found Mrs
Cake again she’d found wines for a euro fifty and three euros. I’d struggled to
find the spirits aisle, but much to my relief (and after being briefly overwhelmed
by the choice of bottled water) there it was, and while it was small, there was
a plethora of different varieties of grappa.

The problem now was
how to make my choice. I quickly engaged the logic circuits and decided to
choose something that was 50cl, rather than 70 (to better facilitate finishing
it during the holiday), and that was also at least 40% ABV (because it’s just
better, and I can tell the difference).

...and in the glass... at night

Deta Ars Essentiae in the bottle...

It still wasn’t easy
with all that affordable spirit (prices ranged from 7-35 euros), but in the
end, this is what I went for; Deta Ars Essentiae
Riserva di ChiantiClassico.
Clearly it has been aged (probably from around 18 months to 2 years) and it
comes in a fancy bottle with a Grolsch style cap. No doubt these factors played
a subconscious part in my decision.

Sixty euros later, we
returned to the car to programme the satnav, and found that the duck fest was
around an hour and a half away. As that wasn’t what we’d been led to believe by
our host we wondered whether the satnav was mistaken and decided to head back
to the apartment, drop off our goodies and check the map we’d left there. The
sun was sinking fast, and when we found out the satnav was correct, the
experience of the roads we’d driven so far convinced us an hour and a half more
without food might be a bit much for us to handle on our first day. It was a
shame because food festivals were the kind of thing we would have liked this
holiday to be all about. Nevertheless, our host had said there were these kind
of festivals all the time, so we decided we’d see about trying another one
later in the week.

We headed to the
much nearer town of Loro Ciuffena to search for a restaurant. The one we found
was fairly good, but there was to be no booze for me just yet – navigating dark
mountainous roads (on the wrong side), in a left hand drive car, struggling to
flick between the full beam and dipped headlights and having to be ready to
shift down to second or even first at a moment’s notice was proving far too
taxing to risk driving back with even a single beer in me. The only help was
that the satnav gave me a basic idea of where the road was going, and if the
severity of a turn or gradient wasn’t entirely accurately represented, it at
least gave some advance warning. Making it back to the apartment would be cause
for celebration… and something to look forward to.

Achievement
unlocked: Clutch control.

Beeroni

We did make it - it
would be hard for me to be typing this if we hadn’t – and I dipped straight
into those beers that I’d popped in the fridge a couple of hours before. They
were nice and cold because I’d thought to check the thermostat earlier, and
knocked it down (or up) a notch (whichever makes it colder). It’s worth bearing
this in mind for future holidays – properties will often adjust their fridges
while unoccupied, presumably to economise on electricity bills, so get on it
early and you too could have proper cold beers when you return from that first
excursion.

I was able to
procure four types of bottled beer over the week, all of which were strong and
most of which were terrific. I’m a fan of Italian beer, but sadly I can't remember any specific details for you, so you'll have to make do with pictures. Soz.

Days In

On the first day we
briefly discussed what we would do on each day of the holiday, and it was
quickly decided that there would be two days reserved for sitting around the
pool and in the apartment’s designated garden. The first, we decided, would be
Sunday, our first full day.

The weather, of
course was beautiful, but what would be a sensible time to open that first
beer? 12.30.

Stop. Grappa Time.

Later also, I was
able to open the grappa and sample its delights for the first time. I struggled
a little getting the cellophane off the cap, and I think in the end Mrs Cake may have finished
that particular job off for me, but all that just served to make the pomace
spirit all the sweeter.

Information on this
brand hasn’t been too easy to find, but I can confirm the Deta Ars Essentiae
Grappa Riserva di Chianti Classico is from the Chianti region, which was just
over the next mountain from where we stayed. Also, it is made from the
Sangiovese variety of grape, from which the vast majority of Chianti wines are
made – as we were to learn later.

At 11 euros it
wasn’t the cheapest, but in comparison to the first bottle of grappa I ever bought – Domenis Storica (50% ABV, 32 euros), it was positively budget. Because of that, I kept my
expectations low. Deta was merely
conceived of as something to drink with gay abandon during the holiday, so it
didn’t have to be amazing. It was the stuff I’d be selecting for taking home
that was intended to be special.

Nevertheless, those
late evenings relaxing after a long day’s driving and the two days I was able
to dedicate a little more time to it convinced me that this was actually a
grappa of quality. I’m clearly no expert as yet, but I have decided to move
this straight into 2nd place (behind the unaged Storica) on the
grappa hierarchy, and that is actually ahead
of the aged Domenis Blanc e Neri,
which you may remember me parting with 48 hard-earned pounds for. That had a
slightly bitter finish, despite a complexity on the palate. There was no
bitterness with the Deta, so it turns
out to be quite a bargain.

Boozy Chess Update

If you’ll allow me
to digress for just a moment, let’s just get into the game of chess that we had
on our last full day at the apartment. We didn’t follow any specific drinking
rules, but we were drinking. Mrs Cake was on the red wine and I was trying to
polish off a number of strong beers and just over a quarter of a bottle of the grappa.

It was a good game
that had two turning points. First, I lost concentration enough to plan ahead
and then act on my future plan before the situation was in place. Mrs Cake
threatened one of my important pieces, and instead of moving it I decided to back
it up – which should be fine, except I backed up a move that hadn’t happened
yet, allowing Mrs Cake to take the piece I was trying to protect.

That seriously
affected my chances of winning, but I went on, hoping I could forge out a
clever victory. What won it in the end though was when Mrs Cake inexplicably
moved the one piece that was preventing me launching an attack on her king.

Unbelieving, I
looked at it and said, “why would you do that?” suspecting I might be about to fall
into a trap, as I so often do but no, Mrs Cake had just gifted the match to me.
I moved my castle up next to her king and that was it. A lucky victory.

I’ll leave it there
for part one. Join me next week for part 2, when we’ll be visiting Siena and
the Chianti region and having all kinds of exciting adventures. See you then.

Sunday, 9 February 2014

Exciting times: I
finally got around to ordering that extra strong Stolichnaya vodka that I had
been coveting for some time, like God’s neighbour’s very fine arse – 50% ABV,
it is. It was delivered quickly… but sadly to a neighbour’s house. I read the
card as no 3, and went there twice (thankfully no one was in) before realising
the card said no 13. I didn’t even know there were 13 houses on our road. There
are, and it’s the one occupied by the Australian guy who, when we met him, told
us he was about to play cricket for the first time ever. That’s like meeting an
adult Indian who’s never had a curry. What next; a Manc who doesn’t think he’s
funny?

He’s been doing the
house up for however many months it’s been since he and his partner moved in
there, and that’s what he was doing the three times I went and knocked on –
receiving no answer. As I found out the next day when I returned from an
incredibly early round of golf to find the bottle had been delivered to Mrs
Cake in my absence, he had been working in the loft and unable to get to the
door in time. No matter, the prize was now in my possession, and ready to begin
its obligatory anticipation-building period, or ABP* as I’m calling it until I
can think of something better.

It isn’t absolutely
necessary, but it is a universal truth that it is best to open a new bottle
when you have company – not too much company, mind. You want to make sure
there’s plenty left for you to enjoy on your own afterwards.

And so it was that I
decided the 100 Proof Stoli was ripe for opening one Friday evening when my
friend Phil came round. It had been a while, and there was booze to be shown
off so out came the blue.

A-a-a-a-a-nd… it’s fricking delicious – way better than I
ever even imagined it could be. I thought the Stoli red was good (it is), but
this is just another level of greatness. The increased strength adds layer upon
layer to that flavour – which still tastes like Stoli red but… more. It’s full
bodied, oily, mouth coating… all those good things, and it just got better and
better with every sip. This was at room temperature too – no need to freeze.

This is quite simply
the best vodka I’ve ever known, and at around £25 a bottle, well worth it. No, don’t waste your time
if you want to mix it with something but, if mixing is all you use vodka for,
this could expand your consciousness and give you something you didn’t think
was possible: vodka you want to drink straight (if Stoli red hadn’t already
done that).

Phil agreed that it
was tasty, and I was enjoying it so much that my next thought was, Paul needs to try this.I made sure
to pour some in a sample jar and take it out to the next day’s pub crawl.

“You know what I
think of vodka, don’t you?” Paul said as I handed it over.

He took a sip, and
even he was impressed. I told him to keep the sample, and keep dipping into it.

In conclusion then,
I have a new favourite vodka. It’s the same as the old favourite, but stronger
and better. I’ve been pretty much tearing this bottle up on Friday nights
before settling in with the mellower stuff.

I doubt I’m ever
going to improve on it but… I have learned there is also a Stolichnaya Gold
vodka at around the same price, that no doubt will be on my shopping list now –
despite being only 40% ABV. After that I suppose I’ll have to try some different
brands. I better find some good ones quick though, or I’m just going to order
the 100 proof Stoli in bulk and let everyone else take care of the others.

*the practice of leaving a new bottle
unopened for an unspecified period to further build the anticipation/excitement,
making the actual opening (or, moment of fulfilment) a special occasion. You
don’t need a special occasion to open special booze –opening the booze is
special occasion enough.

Sunday, 2 February 2014

Camping. It’s a rite
of passage apparently. Something that, in American society (or so certain kinds
of movies would have you believe) fathers do with their sons to help them
develop into men – because Americans still need to be able to survive in the
wilderness, catching fish with their teeth, wrestling bears and the like.

It’s different here
in the UK of course. I never went camping with my dad. I never went camping at
all until I reached the grand old age of 24, and if I had gone with my dad I
would have found the whole experience to be quite different from that portrayed
in the American films I’d grown up with – we don’t have any bears for a start,
and as for camping in the wilderness… it can be more like camping on a council
estate (which is the British equivalent of a wild, untamed wilderness), since
in most cases campsites seem to be simply fields where people go for a cheap
holiday and to drink lots of lager, eat lots of barbequed food and sit about
being lairy, all side by side. Am I saying it’s a microcosm of British society?
Well, I wasn’t, but now I think about it, I suppose I could be.

Don’t get me wrong
though; camping is fun, I just haven’t really figured out what’s fun about it yet. Is it the sounds of people snoring from
across the field? No… is it waking up at three in the morning with a screaming
bladder and having to weigh up the benefits of emptying it against the
inconvenience of getting dressed lying down and then traipsing to the toilet
block in the cold and or dark and or wet? No, it’s not that either. Is it the
way you can never be sure of the weather, but how much fun you have depends on
it? Is it the kids that wake you up with their screaming and squealing at 7 in
the morning? Or the way it takes ages to
do anything? How it’s difficult to
get clean, stay clean, feel clean?

rocking it with the Stoli

No, it’s none of
those things, but in spite of those
things, it’s good. It’s just something that people do in order to get a change
of scenery, and that in itself does them a world of good. There’s always
something new to see (and laugh at)… and it’s a great excuse for drinking with
your friends.

A couple of weekends
past, Mrs Cake and I decided to go camping on Anglesey, North Wales. I was
dispatched to Aldi to pick up some bottled beers for the missus, and while I
did so I started thinking about which of my spirits would be going with us. The
winner: Stolichnaya. There’s no point in taking your single malts when you’ll
be drinking from plastic beakers. I also picked up some Holsten Pils for me.

Ok, rules. First, find
the flattest pitch possible, as far away as possible from other campers, always
have your first beer while erecting the tent, reward yourself with a 2nd
beer as soon as the tent is up and carry an open can of beer around with you at
all times. Those seem pretty universal.

an empty shoe makes a handy drinks holder

We stayed this time
at a site near the town of Moelfre, overlooking an enormous beach. It was a
peaceful site – in fact it would turn out to be too peaceful…

After a couple of
beers and dinner, I rolled a joint and we took it and a couple of cups of vodka
down to the beach for an early evening stroll, returning a little while later
with a happy buzz and a propensity for hysterics.

As the light faded
and we sat outside the tent that night, watching not very much in particular
happen, chatting and drinking a little more, I wondered – what’s it all about? Not life no, but why were we there? We were
just sitting in a field, not doing anything. And so was everyone else. We were having
a nice time, but couldn’t we have been having a nice time at home?

We could be having a
nice time at home, but while there would be more to entertain us, it wouldn’t
be the same – we wouldn’t be having quite
such a nice time. It’s the same reason you go on holiday.

As the evening wore
on, we moved our chairs into the shelter of the tent and continued the fun.

Right at that moment
a man popped his head round and said, “just to let you know, it’s a very still
night and your voices carry a long way – you can be heard up to a quarter of a
mile away, so you know – just to let you know…”

So we were being
reprimanded for being noisy. It seems that for once we were the lairy ones. We looked around us and realised everyone
else on the entire campsite had gone to bed, and it was only 10.45! What the…
it’s Friday night! Why’s everyone gone to
bed?

Over the next hour
or so Mrs Cake and I went through a series of emotions and thought processes:

-Yeah,
perhaps we were being a bit loud…

-It is
after 10.30 (though we didn’t realise it at the time), and the campsite rules
did state ‘no noise after 10.30’…

-We
weren’t being that loud!

-It’s not
like we were shouting and swearing!

-We might
have been jokingly singing that Taylor Swift Trouble song… you know, with the screaming goats.

-How dare
they!

-Oh
christ, was everyone able to hear what we were saying?

-You
couldn’t have heard us a quarter of a mile away! The edge of the campsite isn’t
that far!

-Ah, it’s
all right, he was kind of nice about it…

-What a
dick.

-

Yeah, a bit neurotic
as someone whose had a few drinks and a joint might be… We kept ourselves a
little quieter on the Saturday night, though an incredibly Manc couple came
over to tell us we weren’t being that loud after all, which was nice. They had
been reprimanded for having a fire in a barbeque, which someone else had
earlier told them was ok. They compared the way the site was run to a
concentration camp with its military discipline and iron fist. You could see
the family home at the top end, and the Manc guy came over later to point out
that the owner was standing in his conservatory, surveying the site with a pair
of binoculars, like Ralph Fiennes in
Schindler’s List.

It wasn’t the first
time we’d heard the comparison – at the end of a walk to a nearby pub on the
Saturday we’d met an older couple who had asked where we were staying and
described the campsite as militaristic.

shower beer

Ah well, we still had
a nice time and a good laugh, and that’s what it’s all about, eh? Yeah. And I was able to get a shower-beer in –
because the showers were warm and impeccably clean, so military discipline is
good for something.

A couple of weeks
later we camped with our friends Paul and Victoria in a field, behind a pub in
Derbyshire. This was a very different affair – more space, no noise
restrictions… and a pub, of course.

We’d been booze
shopping beforehand again, and this time we’d decided to try Asda just for a
change, and because they tend to have better deals on spirits than Tesco. I had
£30 burning a hole in my pocket and an intention to buy some gold rum.

shopping

My idea had been to not buy two bottles, but I forgot this
when I was having trouble making a decision and Mrs Cake said, “you could buy two bottles”, so I did and here’s what I
ended up drinking that weekend in Derbyshire.

Mount Gay Eclipse

Class: Gold

Origin: Barbados

ABV: 40%

Price: £13

Presentation: I like
the bottle shape –rectangular with rounded shoulders – and it has a distinctive
label depicting a map of Barbados. It’s very recognisable.

Thoughts: I’ve read quite
a few nice things about this (user reviews on retail sites, blog reviews and
the like) but I can’t for the life of me understand why. To my palate this is
rough, grainy, thin and not particularly complex. It may have a 2.5% advantage,
but it also lacks the sweetness of Bacardi
Gold, which I would normally tend to look down on. I would actually prefer to like the Mount Gay Eclipse to
that, but I don’t. I’m not saying it’s a bad
rum, but it’s only good for mixing or for your hip flask.

Liberty Ship

Class: dark

Origin: unspecified

ABV: 37.5%

Price: £10

Presentation:
There’s nothing fancy here. It’s a very basic bottle with a very basic label
depicting a compass.

Thoughts: I have to
say I’m more impressed with this one than with the Mount Gay. Maybe it’s the
lower expectations and I know that for £10 it can’t be up to much, but for my
taste, there’s more going on here. Perhaps there should be, given that it is of
the dark variety…

On the nose I’m
getting balsamic vinegar, and in terms of palate it is dry and spicy. It’s
still not special, and it won’t get much use beyond cocktails and the hip flask
but it is marginally the better of my two camping purchases. In direct
comparisons with dark rums of a similar price point though, Lambs (thought
slightly more expensive in general) is preferable.

I did take both
bottles camping, and opened both, though I’m not sure why. One would surely
have sufficed. Perhaps I wanted to make sure there was some left for when we
got home, and there would be more likelihood of this if I dipped into two
bottles instead of relying on one. That must be it.

I know, it being the
middle of winter that this maybe isn’t the right time to be posting on this
topic, but such is arbitrary way in which I work. I mean, it doesn’t matter;
once it’s posted it’s there forever, so it will be relevant when spring rolls
around again.

Definitions

What happens when you zone out after having had a cheeky lunchtime pint.

Alcothusiast:

Not an alcoholic, someone who appreciates booze.

Anxiety, The:

The uneasy feeling that accompanies any noteworthy hangover.

Booze Buffet Mentality:

The propensity people have to go nuts whenever there's a free bar.

Booze Porn:Photos of alcohol.

Bread Chest:Not booze related, but this term describes the indigestion you get from eating too many bread products too quickly. Just putting it out there...

Crawler's Block:The inability to decide where to go next during a pub crawl - often resulting in crawl stagnation and someone saying, "shall we just have another one here?"

Crawl Stagnation:The result of failing to plan a pub crawl sufficiently - lack of a route, theme or over-familiarity with nearby pubs can all be contributing factors.

Excess Induced Alcohol Aversion:An intolerance for a drink caused (usually) by one occasion of overindulgence.

The Family:My whisky collection.

MOMA:

Moment of Maximum Appreciation. Every bottle has one. It's the time you drink it where you enjoy it most.

Old Man Pub:Traditional British pub, renowned for being quiet, cosy and frequented by old men. Much favoured by people who like a nice chat while they drink.Psychological Drinks Cabinet:Collective term relating to the kinds of alcoholic drinks a person has need for.Road Beers:

Cans of beer that you take with you when you go out, to consume on the way.

The 3 Types of Rum:White, gold and dark. Together they form the base of many a great cocktail.

About Me

Neil Cake is interested in all types of booze, but is by no means an authority or expert. Most of the time he's just trying to be funny, but he is learning, and enjoys sharing his adventures and what he learns on the Drink it How You Like it blog.
Thengyuverrymuuuuuch.